


Bake Off

by MegumitheGreat



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Great British Bake Off Fusion, Attempt at food porn, Competition, F/M, Fluff, Indirect Sequel, judges
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 22:12:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18397385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: Lailah has made it to the semifinals in this year's Bake Off along with Zaveid.  While she intends to win the competition, Zaveid intends to win her heart.





	Bake Off

**Author's Note:**

> I want to apologize that the quality decreases as you read because I got busy and then I deeply regretted doing this idea. I wanted to write something like The Sparrowfeathers Cafe since it was got a really nice couple of comments, and I've been wanting more ZavLai lately. Be the change you want to see in the world--right? So I wanted to contribute. It's REALLY hard to write based on a cooking show, and the flavor (no pun intended) seemed to have drifted as I wrote.

She woke up to the bright summer sun that morning. Long white-to-pink hair and jade-colored eyes, she was excited to get started with her recipe. She had gone to visit a coffee shop called the Sparrowfeathers Café the day before to bounce ideas on the spunky barista working there for what she could make for Biscuit Week. She had practiced well into the night before to make sure that her bake was perfect. She was most proficient in crackers and cookies and biscuits, so she felt confident that she would be named Star Baker for this week. To make sure that she would win, she tried to factor in the differences between her apparatus and those in the tent.  
She swung herself out of bed, freshening up and putting on a red and gold sundress. She put her hair up in a tiara-like barrette. In less than ten minutes, she was ready to head on over to the chateau the quaint competition.

As she walked, she noticed a fellow competitor. A tall man with tanned skin, fiery amber eyes, and long—but not as long as hers—silver-to-peridot hair that seemed like it had never been brushed. He was wearing a white T-shirt and an opened thin grey button-up. His jeans were faded, looking like they were ready to tear at the knees. The only thing that seemed out of place was the necklace he always wore. It was a simple one consisting of a couple green and couple red glass beads all collecting at the center where there was a pendant shaped like a crossed shield. When she had first seen him at the beginning of the ten-week competition, she had been curious. She wanted to ask him about the necklace, but she just couldn’t. It would have been strange to walk up and ask where he got it.

Everyone in the tent was on good terms with everyone else. They were all bonded together over the fear of disappointing the judges and consequently being dropped from the contest. And they were encouraged to build friendships. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when they met at the extravagant manor hosting the contest that this man of interest approached her.

“Well, good morning, Lady Lailah!” he greeted her. “You look positively stunning today. Feeling confident?”

“Good morning, Zaveid,” she replied with a smile. “I see you’re as relaxed as ever.” She admitted that she felt good about her recipes today though was careful not to spill any secrets. The competition wasn’t hostile in the slightest, but one could never be too careful of a few snakes in the garden. “What about you? How do you feel?”

“Eh, same-old, same-old. I’m not that great at baking, so I’m still kind of surprised that I’ve made it this far. To think we’re already at the semifinals.”

Lailah recalled that his past recipes were just falling short of the judges’ liking, but there had been others who had failed to produce anything edible or their pieces had fallen apart right at the end due to some sort of lapse in baking logic. With next week being the finals, she knew that she could not slip up.

The four bakers made their way to the tent in the summery afternoon. Natalie and Mason manned their countertops while Zaveid and Lailah were still exchanging a few words here and there. The hosts as well as the judges stood at the front of the tent. Zaveid glanced at Lailah, discreetly motioning to her to look at how devious the judges looked. Lailah stifled a giggle.

“Good morning, bakers!” one of the hosts—a very tall gothic man—greeted with a cheerful voice. “Welcome back to the tent for Biscuit Week.”

For your signature challenge, you must bake twenty-four—count them, twenty-four—iced biscuits,” the second host—a shorter woman—told them. “Your biscuits must have a distinctive snap and must be identical.” She smiled at the remaining bakers. “You have three hours. Ready, set…”

“Bake!” the male host announced.

The four of them got to work. It was far into the competition, so they had to show off the best they had yet.

Lailah was making a batch of her red-hot fire cookies. The dough was dyed red with red pepper, and the fillings were red hot candies. She added cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger to help bolster the warmth that would hopefully come through. She had a few scotch bonnets on hand in case she needed more of a kick. Once they were cut, baked, and cool; she was going to use red icing to draw on a flame.

“I practiced these so much at home that I’m pretty confident that they’ll taste nice,” she told the camera crew that were pulling aside the bakers to talk with them for a few seconds.

When she wasn’t baking, Lailah worked as a fortune-teller and paper artist. She had won herself a hefty reputation as a psychic, and her paper crafts were so intricately done that people often paid a surprisingly large sum for them. She hoped to open an art exhibit soon.

“Good Morning, Lailah,” the male judge said as he and the other judge and hosts approached her counter. Can you tell us about your biscuits?”

“Absolutely!” Lailah chimed and she mixed her ingredients and made a reddish dough. “It’s a recipe that I thought up and bounced on a friend who works in a café. They are going to have cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger…maybe some scotch bonnets, but I’m not sure yet. I’m also adding red hot candies so it looks a little like a flaming chocolate chip cookie just without the chocolate. And I have this cookie-cutter in the shape of a flame.”

“You’ve got your work cut out for you,” the female judge chortled. “Do you think you’ll have enough time?”

“I think I will!”

“Good luck, Lady Lailah,” the tall host told her. They left her counter, moving toward Natalie then Mason.

The two of them were working hard, so when the four of them came to Zaveid—clearly at a loss of what to do—they looked at him a little dubiously. He had all his ingredients laid out, but he still hadn’t started ten minutes into the challenge.

“Zaveid, is there something wrong?” the woman judge asked.

“Not really?” he said albeit unsure himself. “I think I brought the wrong alcohol. It’s a mint bourbon, but I already have mint leaves here.”

“Why don’t you tell us your plan?” the other judge suggested, somewhat irked that he hadn’t started yet.

Zaveid’s mint julep cookies were his signature bake. Made with a chocolate dough, he was going to add mint and bourbon. With pistachio icing, he was going to draw a swirl of wind to pay homage to his family’s crest.

“I see, that’s quite a bit of work—which you should start,” the male judge told him.

“Just follow your heart with the bake,” the female host said. “It’ll turn out better that way.”

“I guess,” Zaveid sighed. He apprehensively picked up his cocoa powder. As if by magic, he suddenly got an idea of how to make his cookies.

An hour had passed, and most of the bakers were half-way finished with their bakes. Lailah herself was being careful not to drop her biscuits after she had carefully cut out her flames with the cutter and baked them. She marveled at the candies that had melted in her cookies which shined like still-burning embers. She decided not to use the scotch bonnets.

Zaveid, the other hand, had made a mess of his ingredients. He had added in too much cocoa powder, then too much ground mint, then not enough bourbon, then too much bourbon. The more mistakes he made, the more he began to panic.

Natalie and Mason tried to offer words of comfort, but Lailah—nearly finished with her batch—took it upon herself to help him. He had gone through much of his ingredients, but she was sure that he could still produce 24 cookies from what he had left. They were just going to be a tad small.

“Lailah, you shouldn’t be helping me like this,” he whispered.

“I’m just going to get your dough started,” she told him. “You don’t even have a base to work with, and if you don’t produce some sort of result, you’ll be sent home without question.”

Zaveid couldn’t stop her from helping him out, and he did do half the work as he tasted the dough to make sure it was right. He began making his pistachio icing by processing the nuts until they were almost dust. He took a tiny bit of the mint paste to give the butter and sugar mixture a light green tint. Of course, the pistachio colored it as well, but it was more of a chartreuse than a green. Lailah finished prepping his dough before returning to her counter to ice her cookies. Zaveid quickly cut his dough and baked the 24 circles.

“Bakers, you have five minutes!” the hosts alerted.

Presentation was also an important part for judging. If it looked good, then it would prime the consumer that it would taste good. Lailah’s fires were laid in four rows of six in a woven basket with a plaid red and white cloth to keep them from cracking on the bottom. She poured a small tumbler of milk for the judges and hosts in case the heat was too much for them.

Zaveid was just out of time to make a nice presentation. His cookies were placed on a platter in concentric circles. That was all. He wanted to garnish with mint and pistachios and a shot of bourbon for each onlooker, but it was too ambitious for what little time he had left.

“Bakers, time is up!” the tall host told them. “Please push your bakes to the end of you station.”

Lailah carefully brought hers as close to the end as she could without jostling her bake. Zaveid was a little less so.

Lailah’s cookies were judged first. Red-hot fires. The judges were wary of the addition of milk but were nevertheless excited to try her cookies.

After a bite, the female judge’s eyebrows shot off like rockets. “That’s a very spicy biscuit, and I can get all the spices you used. The candies are a bit hard, so definitely want to melt them a little more so they don’t break any teeth,” she said. Lailah nodded.

The male judge smirked before reaching out his hand. “I love the heat the comes through after a couple bites. And the flavors from the cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger all mix perfectly; and you didn’t have to use those peppers. Lailah, you’ve earned yourself a handshake.”

Lailah was beside herself despite being so confident before. She didn’t think she would get a handshake out of her recipe!

Natalie and Mason had provided above-average bakes. Then they came to Zaveid. The male judge scrutinized the presentation, commenting that it looked like it was just thrown down on the platter instead of neatly assembled. But taste was more important, so he let it slide for now. The judges took a cookie each, biting into it with no expectation.

The female judge’s face scrunched up; she wasn’t a fan of alcohol in bakes. She thought the bourbon was too strong, which surprised Zaveid until he remembered that he had a higher tolerance than most and an acquired taste for it. The male judge, on the other hand, was delightfully surprised with how well the cookies tasted.

“Chocolate and mint are a rather common combination, and it’s usually too strong on one side or the other. But adding that bourbon with its own hint of mint balances the coolness with the warmth of a good alcohol. To be honest, I’m a bit dodgy on adding pistachio to this mix, but the good thing is that the pistachio in the icing isn’t too overbearing to cover up the chocolate. Well done.”

Zaveid glanced at Lailah, who was quietly clapping for him. When the bakers left the tent with their bakes, they told the camera crew just how they felt about the comments.

“I got a handshake!” Lailah giggled.

“I did not expect to get that kind of praise for my cookies,” Zaveid said, still awestruck that his flavor choices were good ideas. “I mean, yeah, I got help, but the flavors!”

There was some downtime as the hosts prepared the bakers for the next portion of their day. Lailah was still over the moon that she had gotten a handshake. Zaveid was just happy that his signature had come out well enough to warrant any compliments at all. He wanted to congratulate and thank his peer for her help, but he had second thoughts. He let her enjoy the bliss of getting a handshake this late in the game.

Next was the technical challenge, in which the bakers were given a recipe of one of the judges’ choice. The recipe only had the bear minimum of instruction and the same ingredients that everyone had to use; the bakers had to figure out everything else on their own in an hour and a half.

The recipe this time was to make Viennese whirls. According to the judge who made her own recipe for the challenge, the biscuits that made the cookie had to be piped in a swirl and incredibly soft buttercream and tart raspberry jam were to be sandwiched inside. The jam and buttercream could not leak or fall out of the biscuits, which was going to require perfect timing to produce twelve without leaving the filling to melt. Additionally, if the butter wasn’t soft enough before the sugar was added, it would not come out of the pipe.

Lailah got to work on her batch. She believed that the jam had to be a little stiff so that it wouldn’t readily melt away, and she applied that idea to the buttercream. After setting them aside to cool and stiffen, she made her dough by mixing butter, sugar, and flour. When she put the dough into the pipe and tried to squeeze it out into 24 swirls, she found that it was difficult. She kept squeezing and squeezing until she felt something squishy and smooth on her hand.

“Oh, no…” she muttered. “The piping bag burst…”

One of the hosts went to try and assist her only to make a bigger mess than it already was. Zaveid was working on his own, and he saw Lailah’s plight. His jam and buttercream were ready—not too loose and not too stiff—and his biscuits had been piped and were now chilling in the fridge before baking. He rushed over to her side.

“Everything okay?” he whispered. He noticed her piping bag that had burst and the new one in her hands. “It’s too stiff,” he said. “If you try to squeeze it, it’ll just break again. Here, give it to me.”

Lailah was speechless since he didn’t seem to know much about baking—and he had said so himself—but she handed him the dough. His hands were rather large, making her wonder how he was going to do in the showstopper. He handed it back to her, this time the dough slightly warmer. She piped the first whirl and came to find that it had come out smoothly. He returned to his station, taking his whirls from the fridge and popping them into the oven to bake.

By now, the jam and buttercream had set and chilled, and once the biscuits were baked, everyone took them from their ovens to cool. Lailah’s had begun to crumble much to her dismay.

“Five minutes left!” the hosts warned.

There was a mad rush to slather the jam and pipe the buttercream, but in the last five minutes, everyone had produced their Viennese whirls with varying degrees of success. Zaveid’s looked perfect, but Lailah’s had suffered from the baking process.

The hosts called time. The bakers placed their platters of their whirls in front of their photos, and in just a few minutes as they took their seats, the judges came in. Natalie and Mason had done alright. Lailah’s had lost the definition of the whirl on top yet the biscuit itself had been baked too long. They pointed out that it was rather oily—there was too much butter. Zaveid’s had the definition, the jam reached the edges, and the buttercream had been perfect.

“Alright, in last place, this one,” the female judge pointed to Lailah’s platter. She had no choice but to raise her hand. “It was too crumbly and oily.” Mason came in third, Natalie in second, and finally Zaveid in first. “This one was nearly perfect.”

As such, the day had ended bittersweet, and Zaveid asked Lailah to come with him to get something to eat around dinnertime. She had to wonder how he could eat when they had been nibbling on sweets all day. He asked her not to think about it. They walked side by side once they reached the little town. They came to a small dainty restaurant.

The restaurant they had gone to was an Italian one. It wasn’t one of those posh places, but it wasn’t a dinky one either. It was somewhere that people went for a get-together or for a romantic dinner. Lailah was apprehensive because she wasn’t sure if it was the former or the latter. She and the man she had been competing against took their seats; he didn’t pull her seat out for her, so perhaps it really was dinner as friends. Zaveid and Lailah ordered relatively light dishes since they were still full from their day in the tent. Mushroom ravioli and fettucine alfredo arrived in a few short minutes.

“Um, Zaveid, why did you ask me to come with you?” Lailah asked before she took a bite. She wanted to know so she could set her mind at ease. She had to focus on the showstopper tomorrow and taking this detour and time out away from practicing made her anxious.

Zaveid looked at her, cheese and sauce collecting at the corners of his mouth. After he swallowed, he leaned back with a napkin wiping the creamy debris. “I think you need to relax.”

“What?”

“I can see it on your face. Coming last in the technical hurt your pride, didn’t it?”

“I…It was just a fluke. I’ll do better tomorrow.”

“After we eat, do you mind taking a little walk with me?”

“Zaveid, you know tomorrow is very important. I need to get home and practice.”

Twirling a lock of his long wild hair with a look of boredom on his face, he shook his head. Trying to perfect a recipe in a matter of hours wasn’t going to help anyone. She would just be wasting her energy and her time. He wanted her to come with her on a walk so she could momentarily forget about the stress of the competition. Baking wasn’t something to get flustered about. It was for fun, and he wanted her to be at peace.

“You really need to chill about this…wait, you’re not suspicious of me, are you!?” Zaveid gasped, melodramatically flinging his arm to his forehead like a damsel in distress. “I’m just trying to look out for you!”

Lailah shushed him. People in the restaurant were staring at them, daggers for eyes and food-filled frowns. She agreed to walk with him if it meant he would stop with the theatrics and be a normal person. A toothy grin more befitting of a child stretched on his lips. He finished his plate quickly, though when he watched Lailah eat her dinner, he couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.

Even more so, he couldn’t get over that she was quite the lady. She ate prim and proper, never once dropping any food on herself or her area of the table. She dabbed her mouth instead of wiping it clean. When she had finished, she carefully stacked the dishes and cleaned up. Just something about these common movements and habits tickled him. He offered to pay for their meals, and while Lailah declined so she could pay for herself, she appreciated the gesture.

The two left the restaurant for a walk along the little canal beside it. Since the meal had been light, they were okay to walk and talk. It was a quiet night, the sidewalk illuminated by strung lights and the sounds of the local musicians echoing along behind them. Other people were dining out, but it only made Lailah more anxious about the showstopper.

“Heh, well, all this is pretty relaxing, isn’t it?” Zaveid smiled.

“Oh, did you say something?” Lailah asked after a short moment.

“You’re still thinking about the showstopper?”

“I can’t help it.”

“Yes, you can. You just need to think about something else. Like…oh, I’ve always noticed that you stare at my necklace. Interested in the story?”

Lailah was being lured into the conversation. She knew that, yet she had been genuinely interested in knowing what the necklace was about. She took a chance on this bait.

“Well, this necklace is back from my days as a bouncer in clubs and bars. I was young and stupid and thought that getting into fights was the best life ever. Then I met a girl, and she thought the necklace was cool. Something about how it made me seem like a knight in shining armor. So we chatted for a bit and we started dating. Maybe about a year into our relationship, she started getting sick. We went to the doctor, and couple weeks later, we got bad news.”

Lailah listened without a word. She had an inkling that the necklace had something to do with a previous partner, but she didn’t expect him to have had it since before that.

“She had the big C, but it was treatable. She went on all the therapies they had, but they made her feel worse. It was hard—hearing her ask to just fade then. She’d given up, and within a month or so, she passed away. During that month, she wanted to go out an have fun. She wanted kids, but it wasn’t something I could provide knowing that she wasn’t going to last to enjoy them. So we did charity work and such. Went on little adventures.”

“I didn’t realize how important that necklace was. It reminds you of her, doesn’t it.”

“Yep. It’s like a good luck charm, because just like back then, it’s brought us together.”

Now there was something that vexed Lailah. After that rather melancholic story, she couldn’t believe that he would use it as a pickup line. She knew that the walk was going to lead to something horrible like that, and she had wasted enough time with him. Perhaps it was some elaborate scheme to mess her up for the competition. She couldn’t express her dissatisfaction, but she could make it somewhat evident. She immediately became disinterested—not that the conversation had gone anywhere else after that.

The warmth that usually came from this queen of a woman suddenly turned cold, and Zaveid knew he had messed up. Of course, he hadn’t really meant it at all the way it sounded, and the necklace wasn’t at all tied to his previous girlfriend aside from how they had met. Sure, he saw similarities between them, but he didn’t compare them nor was he interested in her because of that. He saw in Lailah something that he wished he had for himself. It was her tenacity, the fiery passion to do what she liked.

“I’m going home,” she finally said. “I have to wake up early and prepare as best as I can for the showstopper.

“Lailah, wait!” Zaveid tried to stop her.

“I’ve heard enough. I’m not interested.”

“No, you don’t understand! Come on, this is a misunderstanding!”

Lailah didn’t wait to listen to his explanations. She turned around and walked the other direction to her home.

The next morning, the four bakers came to the tent, all but one ready for the next grueling eight hours of baking. Lailah looked as if she hadn’t slept at all. Dark circles colored around her jade eyes like an inverted panda.

“Good morning, bakers!” the female host greeted. “Today is our showstopper.”

“You’ll be making centerpieces out of biscuits,” the male host stated. “You must use at least two types of biscuit to make them, and they must all have some sort of decoration. Nothing can be store-bought. You have seven hours. On your marks…get set…”

“Bake!”

The pressure was on, and Lailah was feeling it all at once. She didn’t know what she was making, and she couldn’t think of anything to make. She got to work with something of a half-assed idea to build a sword in a stone out of her cookies. She made her dough—shortbread and then some abomination that she didn’t have the time or ideas to fix. Frazzled out of her wits, she just mixed together her ingredients, kneading and kneading her doughs until she remembered that she needed to bake them as well.

Natalie and Mason were working hard on their presentations, and Zaveid had sketched out just what he wanted to build. It was going to be a white-horned dragon fashioned from his cookies. He felt guilty while making it, though. He blamed himself for Lailah’s unpreparedness and cursed himself for having a plan. He didn’t deserve to be where he was, but Lailah…oh, how he wished he could have helped her.

Going into the third hour, everyone was starting to bake. Lailah watched her cookies cook despite knowing there was nothing to see quite yet and that staring into the oven would hurt her eyes. Zaveid felt confident enough to leave his station to talk with the lady. He kept an eye on his timer.

“Um, Lailah? You doin’ okay?” he asked hesitantly. He knew she wasn’t, but what else was he supposed to say to her?

“I’m going to fail…Zaveid, I’m going to fail because my cookies aren’t working out…!” she panicked. “I don’t want to go home yet!”

“I-It’ll be okay!” he reassured her, giving her false hope that she didn’t need. “A lovely, fiery girl like you wouldn’t let this get to herself! And I have to say, your confidence is super sexy.”

“Now is _not_ the time!” she hissed.

“Okay, okay—just trying to…make you feel better.” He looked into her oven. “Lailah? Uh…”

“What?”

“You didn’t turn your oven on—you hit the light switch,” Zaveid told her. He quickly set it for her to bake after noting that she had gone silent before letting out a shrill restrained scream. “I got it!”

Lailah had been set back two hours, and by the time her cookies began to brown, everyone else’s were ready to come out and cool. She pleaded for them to finish quick, all the while Zaveid watching her with sympathetic eyes. By the time had was nearly done assembling the dragon out of his cookies, Lailah was sobbing. Her cookies were burnt and tasted bitter after she tried raising the temperature too much to make them bake faster. And when it was judgment time, she held back her tears and approached the judges with her tray of broken dreams.

The male judge looked at her with piecing icy-blue eyes with something between disgust and disappointment. Lailah had been a strong baker, but the showstopper was the defining moment where she would prove that she could be a finalist. With nothing edible to present, she essentially was forfeiting her spot.

“Well, you’ve got something on a tray,” the lady host tried to console. That could help you, yeah?”

“They inedible, unfortunately,” the female judge sighed.

“If we can’t eat it, it really doesn’t mean much, does it?” 

“No…” Lailah choked.

They turned her away, and when she returned to her station, she silently cried to herself. Zaveid felt sick watching her; however, before he could throw away his showstopper or leave the tent as a sign of forfeit, he was called up to the judges.

They found his creation to be good. Some of his biscuits were too cry or didn’t have a snap, but the flavors and everything else were just fine. He didn’t care what they had to say. He finished his judging then hurried back to his station. Mason and Natalie were also commended, which gave the impression that they were rubbing it in Lailah’s face that she was going to be sent home from the competition.

As the judges and the hosts left to deliberate in secret, Lailah made her way to a small patch of flowers. She sat down in the summer sun, picking tiny ones and wrapping them and weaving them into little bracelets. Little crafts like that took her mind off troubling things. Zaveid, still feeling responsible and worried about her, didn’t waste any time trying to find her. He joined her in the flowers, remaining silent for a bit until he thought of something funny and lighthearted to say.

“That judge has a really scary face, doesn’t he?” he started. “You’d think with all the sweets and carbs we make, he’d be nicer.” Lailah wasn’t paying attention to him, or she chose not to. “Come on, you’re a lot prettier when you’re smiling. I’m sorry; this is my fault.”

“I was too confident,” she finally said softly.

“No, you weren’t—you’re an awesome baker, Lailah!”

“I got ahead of myself, and because of that, I failed.”

Her jade-colored eyes were still red and swollen from crying, but there was a tiny smile on her face that Zaveid couldn’t help but be entranced by it. She was putting the blame on herself while he had been part of the reason she lost. It seemed now, however, that she was more upset that she cried about it. He couldn’t deny it, though. She was mesmerizing even in this downed state.

While he watched her finish another bracelet, he thought quietly about her. He really liked her, and while he was a flirt and something of a skirt-chaser, he didn’t mind the idea of ending his promiscuous ways. He had used it as a coping mechanism since his previous girlfriend passed, but maybe now it was time to move on. Lailah had accepted that she was to be dropped from the competition, so why couldn’t he accept that he was allowed to be in a serious relationship?

“Hey, Lailah—do you think I should keep going?” he asked gently and thoughtfully.

“With the competition?” she replied in question.

“Yeah. I mean, I originally joined it to meet hot chicks. I’m not a baker. But you…you were so set on winning and it’s partly my fault that this happened. I’d feel bad for continuing on when you should be the one in my place. And besides, neither Mason nor Natalie are my type.”

“Don’t quit because of me!” Lailah pouted. “You worked so hard!”

“And I can work hard by your side.” He turned to her, his wild silver hair framing his face like an angel. “Last night, I wasn’t trying to pick you up—I was just answering your question about my necklace. Regardless, I really like you, Lailah. I like your fire and your passion and who you are as a person; and if you let me, I’m sure my wind can fan your flames.”

Lailah’s face turned bright red. Was it the summer heat that had her feeling flustered, or was it Zaveid’s uncanny pickup line? What were they going to do, though? He couldn’t just leave in the middle of the competition…or could he?

“Are you thinking of eloping or not showing up?” she asked a little more dramatically than she wanted.

“Ma-a-aybe,” Zaveid teased. “‘I’m sorry, but I’ve sprained my wrist and can no longer continue’. They can’t force me to stay, but a little lady like you can make me do anything you want.”

“I-If that’s the case, then we could go out next weekend,” she suggested, leaning closer to him. “But you’ll have to do better than that with your flirting. Sure, you made me flustered, but you need to make feel special if you really want to be with me.”

“I’ve got a better idea—why don’t we do some baking of our own?”

Lailah’s skin prickled. So soon? Did he really want to date her, or did he just want to sleep with her and be out the next morning?

“No, really, I want to try my mint cookies again. I’m going to make them perfect, just you wait!”

Lailah pushed his arm with a giggle. And that was the plan. After Zaveid was crowned the Star Baker and Lailah was officially announced to be the baker leaving, the two spent a day here and there together making sure not to run out of things to do until the weekend rolled around. Zaveid called out of the competition, explaining that his wrist was sprained after he picked up a tray of cookies and cakes the wrong way. A silly excuse that worked surprisingly.

Shortly after, he headed out with Lailah to the Sparrowfeathers Café for a coffee date. Lailah thought he would have felt strange for just leaving the competition. It wasn’t often that there were only two finalists, and she felt she should have urged him to continue with the contest. Zaveid didn’t want to. He was more interested in spending time with her instead of a tray of mediocre cookies and a tiny oven. He promised her that they would have plenty of time to bake together without a couple of blowhards telling him what he already knew. And besides, he would much rather learn Lailah’s secrets for her bakes than the judges—after all, there was love in hers.

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally going to go through with the finals round, but...I feel it was getting mundane. But this ending makes me want to write some smut for these two since I haven't seen much intimacy in fanworks. May I will, maybe I won't--I definitely want to get better at writing Zaveid and Lailah though.


End file.
